


Straw Men

by fizzysplosion



Series: Clutching [1]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Angst, Love Triangle, M/M, Non Consensual, Rape/Non-con References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-06
Updated: 2012-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-29 01:36:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/314425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fizzysplosion/pseuds/fizzysplosion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fenris is thralled into holding down Anders while Ser Karras rapes him.</p><p><b>Warning:</b> This fic contains graphic descriptions of rape and therefore is not suitable for anyone who may be squicked or triggered by such content.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Straw Man

Everything in the clinic was falling apart. The beds didn't have a uniform number of legs between them and had been propped up with whatever Anders could find; books, bricks, old clothes and in one case the remains of a shelf that had got such a bad case of woodrot the innermost structure had collapsed. Despite that most of the mattresses were still sagging in the middle, so that smaller patients tended to pool in the dips. On top of that there'd been a minor conflagration when a child knocked over a candle that had scorched the surface of the table he did most of his work at. Then there was the distressing smell of must from the back wall which indicated that the damp had gotten in, again, ready to attack yet more furniture. Anders allowed himself a small sigh that Justice, ever-present in the back of his mind, stirred at the sound of. _We have chosen to serve justice. Not our own comfort._ Which was easy for him to say, he rarely had to exist in the material world.

Not that Anders' body was much more of a home. He wondered sometimes if Justice really felt things as he did, the age and world weariness that made his joints lock up in the cold, especially his fingers which he sometimes had to pry from his staff and heal just to make them move again. Or the crick in his neck from falling asleep over his desk. The bile in his throat and heartburn from working nonstop, then gorging himself too quickly on whatever he could get his hands on. If he did, he never mentioned it.

Maybe he appreciated the humour of it. A ramshackle man in a ramshackle house. Not that he'd ever shown much evidence of having a sense of humour.

Anders stepped outside, to be greeted by the familiar smells of sulphur, the sewers and more than a hint of the Darktown residents. He checked around for any stragglers in need of his help, then doused the lantern by the door. He leaned against the wall for a moment, breathing in the fetid air of Darktown, then went back to the grind.

He settled into the chair by his desk which teetered and creaked under his weight like a warning it would soon need to be replaced. He made himself as comfortable as he could with his weight braced on his calves and closed his eyes, trying to relax enough that he could refill his reserves of mana after the night's healing.

The next thing he knew, he was being jerked awake by a ruckus at the door. Anders jumped to his feet, eyes still bleary as he stumbled over the door. He rubbed both eyes with the heels of his hands and waited for everything to come back into focus before he opened it onto Hawke with an armful of a snarling, writhing Fenris. Anders stepped back out of range of his flailing arms and legs. Spots of blood were appearing all over Anders' walls and floor as he twisted in Hawke's grip. Hawke's face and hands were covered in it too.

"He's hurt, Anders," Hawke said. "Badly. It's beyond me."

"I am fine!" Fenris said but his voice was thick.

"Put him on one of the beds. Carefully. That one. That's the least broken. I think."

"No," Fenris growled. "No, Hawke. No."

"It's only Anders, Fenris. You've been healed by him before hundreds of times."

Fenris mumbled something that Anders didn't quite catch.

"He's seen it all before. Right, Anders? You'll be discrete."

Anders was about to reply that he would be discrete if Fenris would be compliant but the hysterical edge in Hawke's voice made him stop and nod. "Of course."

Fenris stilled. His head tipped forward into Hawke's chest.

"He took less convincing than I-"

"He passed out! This isn't funny, Anders."

Hawke cradled Fenris into him and charged toward the bed Anders had pointed out. He laid Fenris on it with exaggerated care and stepped away. Anders had to stop himself letting out a foolish gasp. With Fenris rolled onto his back he could see the full extent of the damage. Whatever had delivered the blow had smashed clean through Fenris' armour and left a corona of vicious bruising behind on his skin. A rib had pierced through the muscles of his thorax, which explained the blood, though the worst damage was most likely internal. The stubborn idiot was lucky not to have killed himself by fighting Hawke like that. By rights, he shouldn't have even been awake to put up a fight.

Anders placed both palms against the spot just below Fenris' broken rib and focused his magic down through his fingers and out into Fenris' body. He hissed as the lyrium markings reacted by glowing bright, migraine-inducing blue but it actually seemed to help... Justice was suddenly lapping it up, more awake and vibrant and far less angry than he had been in a long time until Anders' body thronged with the need to have more. To use more magic. To make the lyrium react even more. Even when the body at his fingertips had had so much healing magic coursed up and down it that not even a paper cut could have remained, he continued. He had closed his eyes somewhere in the initial head rush. He opened them just a crack. Fenris' markings were now lit up completely and Anders saw at once why Fenris had come over so modest at the idea of being healed by him. They glowed even through his clothes and outlined every part of his body. He could see every line of Fenris' slightly-too-long elfin neck, the knots and muscles of his broad warrior's shoulders, each curved sinew that marked out his biceps and his long fingers. He could see every deep pit of his chest that marked one perfectly formed muscle from the next and two converging lines that indicated the dents of his pelvis and led the eye lower- Even with the lyrium thrilling through him, Anders did his best to keep his gaze above the waist. Damn it, how did Fenris get so damned attractive?

Anders forced himself away. He could no longer ignore the effect Justice's bliss was having on his own body. He thanked the maker for thick coats stuffed with paper and feathers and closed his eyes as he leaned against the edge of the bed. The touch of Hawke's fingers against the back of his hand sent a jolt through him like the leap of chain lightning from one body to the next.

"Are you okay?" Hawke asked. "You're out of breath."

Anders tugged his hand away from him. "I'm fine."

Hawke nodded and bowed over Fenris. He placed his palm over his forehead as if he was checking for a fever, then rested his ear against his chest and sighed with relief as it rose and fell underneath him. When he straightened up, he began undoing the catches of Fenris' armour and removing each vicious piece. "'Hell of a difference when he's sleeping, hm?" Hawke said. "He almost looks happy."

"Yes, yes. Get him out of my clinic."

"What? Anders, he nearly died. Look at the state of this."

Hawke brandished the armour. It was a state. The chest piece had taken the worst of it but the rest was torqued beyond recognition. Most of it gleamed blackly with drying blood.

"He's fine now."

"What if he isn't? What if he opens something up or you missed some-"

"I didn't miss anything! How can you possibly think this is a good idea Hawke? Do you think you can snap your fingers and I'll just jump, whatever it is? I don't want that- that _thing_ in my clinic where I eat and bathe and sleep."

"But he needs help. I've done everything you ever asked me to do for you. Everything. Without question and often against my better judgement. I don't think asking you to save my friend's life is too much to ask in return."

"Friend? Is that all he is?"

"Is that what this is about? I told you it's not fair on you, on any of you, to choose."

"So you're going to stay alone and abstinent for the rest of your life? Out of fairness."

"If I have to, yes. Please Anders. This isn't the time or place for this. Just make sure Fenris doesn't die. I'll make sure you get something in return. What if I give you some extra gold for the clinic and I give Lirene a big donation for the Fereldans?"

Anders bit back his retort. Hawke knew damn well he couldn't refuse money, not when his clinic was busier than ever and refugees were still flooding into Kirkwall. "Fine."

"Thank you, Anders. When he wakes up tell him I've sent his armour for repair and no more fist-fighting Tal-Vashoth. Try and get some sleep yourself too. You look like you need it."

"Right."

"I appreciate it, Anders."

"Appreciate it somewhere else."

Anders turned his back on Hawke and began shunting potions from one side of a shelf to another. He could hear Hawke behind him, he could even hear the intake of breath as he opened his mouth but whatever it was, he left it unsaid and left. Anders waited until the last footfall had died away before he looked at anything but the shelf. He sighed as his eyes fell on Fenris. He looked naked without his breastplate, bare chest rising and falling, thin leggings drawn tight over the muscles of his thighs and the bulge of his crotch. He had transitioned from unconsciousness into sleep without waking in-between and now was making fussy little noises like a colicky baby. Nightmares perhaps? Anders turned his back on that too. He had no right to see him this vulnerable and he'd had no right to draw on the lyrium the way he had earlier. It wasn't...just. Not that Justice was prone to hesitating anymore. He took what he wanted, whether it was lyrium or vengeance.

He'd be useless for healing for a while, so he locked up the clinic's doors. The exertion was making itself known in his muscles too so he slipped into the back room. Here he had his own water pump to supply the clinic and huge containers of the stuff that he'd sterilised for medical use. He considered, ever-so-briefly, upending one of those into his tin bath until Justice filled his head with admonishments about selfishness. Anders kneeled down by the water pump on creaking knees and filled the tub with rust-tinged water that gave off a strong scent of iron. He left it cold while he stripped and was, for once, thankful for the fetid air of Darktown and its unseasonal humidity as he bared each part of himself to it. Justice groused as he spent mana to heat the water as hot as he could stand. His joints groused even louder as he lowered himself into the tub, his fingers determined to lock around the lip of it until he yanked them away painfully and thrust them under the waterline. He let the heat soak into them until they loosened and relaxed, then took the tie out of his hair so he could rinse away the day's sweat and grime. He sank into the tub, drawing up his knees to fit and tilted his head back against the edge just for a moment.

He woke in tepid water and aching worse than he had before the bath. As he forced himself into alertness, he became aware of faint sounds from the other room.

"Hawke?" Fenris croaked. "Hawke?"

Anders heaved himself out of the bath and pulled only his breeches on after a cursory swipe with his towel. Fenris was still calling for Hawke when he went back into the main room, which was now black as pitch. The candles must have burned out while he was asleep. Anders found his way to the tinder box by memory and feel and managed to light the first one by the same.

"Hawke?" Fenris croaked again.

"He's gone," Anders said. He moved around the room lighting the other lanterns by the light of the first.

"Why not use magic?" Fenris asked, after a few minutes of silence.

"You're actually advocating the use of magic?" Anders said.

"In Tevinter, magic is used for everything. The flashier the better."

"The magisters don't have to worry about sending the whole of Darktown up like a bonfire. The way the damp and sulphur gets into this place, it's like a fireball waiting to happen."

Silence again, then, "I should leave."

Anders turned a critical eye on Fenris, who had drawn his knees up on the beds in an attempt to hide as much of himself as possible. He looked fine but Anders suspected Hawke would be displeased if he sent Fenris off into Darktown in the middle of the night half-naked and without a weapon, even if by some miracle nothing happened to him.

"You're covered in Qunari and Maker knows what else."

"Tal-Vashoth," Fenris corrected.

"Whatever it is, there's a bath in the back. Feel free to use it."

Anders could almost hear Fenris' battle with himself. If he accepted Anders' hospitality, he'd be even more in his debt and if he didn't, he'd have to wander all the way back to Hightown covered in his own filth. The desire to be clean must have won out because he uncurled himself and disappeared into the back room. Anders began stripping the bed he'd vacated. Blood had soaked through all the way to the mattress. Ugh. He'd have to find time to wash that and it wouldn't be a simple matter of dumping it in the tub with some lye, no, he'd have to empty out all the odd socks and torn trousers he'd used as stuffing and wash them piece by piece...

A timid knock on the door distracted him. Anders looked longingly at the back room where he could hear Fenris splashing around. He'd left his coat, boots and shirt in there and was loathe to answer the door to anyone, even a patient, in this state of undress. It was funny how time and freedom had changed him like that. At one point he'd have been happy to have paraded around the Tower in much less. At that point though, he'd had the kind of body to show off. One that responded to his will and bent this way and that with no aches or twinges. One that had been less thick with muscle but young and strong all the same. The knock came again and Anders tossed down the bedding to respond.

It was a young man, probably about Carver's age. Very attractive too, his long-suppressed libido hastened to point out, if a little peaky-looking. He glanced up once at Anders with wide, frightened eyes and then dropped his gaze to his own hands, which fiddled constantly with the hem of his shirt.

"Are you the healer?" he muttered.

"Yes. Do you need something?"

The boy glanced up at him again, this time his gaze took in more of Anders. His damp, shirtless chest and the ends of his loose hair. He coloured, then gulped and nodded.

"You'd better come in then," Anders said. When the boy didn't move, Anders ushered him inside and closed the door behind him. "What is it? Itchiness after a visit to the Rose?"

"What?" The boy stayed against the door, looking scandalised. "No!"

"It's nothing to be ashamed of and a lot more common than you think."

"It's... It's not that. I heard that you sometimes help mages."

Anders glanced toward the back wall but Fenris could hardly stop him doing what he wanted in his own home. Besides, it would take him a while to scrape off all that blood and ichor. "Sometimes."

The boy looked around, eyes roving every corner of the clinic, then back to the door, then back to Anders. "I thought you'd be older," he said.

Anders let out a soft laugh. "I am old. Compared to you, anyway. Why don't you have a seat and tell me about this mage?"

The boy trudged into the room and sat on the very edge of one of the beds. "Are you a mage?" he said, sharply.

Anders held his palm upward and let lightning crackle and fizzle over it. The boy watched owlishly. In another lifetime, that spell had served dozens of lovers. Now, it simply popped and sizzled until it died. "Is that proof enough?"

"Yeah, I'm-" the boy rolled up his sleeves. "It's getting harder to hide the signs."

Anders groaned inwardly. There were long scars all over the inside of his pale wrists. Some fresh, some long healed over. "Blood magic?"

"Yes but I'm not dangerous. I just- It was the only way. There's Templars everywhere here and I have a little sister and I'm weak-"

Anders held up a hand. He had no wish to hear something he'd heard a hundred times before. "Blood magic isn't the answer to any of that. I'll heal your scars, this once, but I don't want to see you here again until you've found another way. Is that clear?"

"Yes. Thank you. Really. Thank you."

Anders kneeled down in front of him, wincing at the impact on his knees, and turned the boy's left wrist over in his hand. "The older ones won't heal completely. They'll only fade."

"I understand."

Anders let loose a touch of healing magic over what looked to be the most recent scar. The boy pressed his wrist into him. His feet curled and scraped against the floor as Anders worked.

"You have scars too," he said, as Anders moved onto the next.

"Not self-inflicted," Anders said.

The boy's gaze was no longer skittish and avoidant, it was now fixed on his torso and Anders was feeling the lack of his coat more than ever. He shifted but tried to concentrate on the scars, on channeling his magic through the boy's skin, speeding up the healing, smoothing out the craggy, half-healed scars- He flinched as he felt the boy's fingers trail over a deep scar at the join of his shoulder, gained what felt like a lifetime ago in Amaranthine. Anders shrugged the hand off his shoulder.

"Keep your hands to yourself," Anders warned.

"Sorry. I will. Sorry."

He kept to his word as Anders finished with the left wrist and moved on to the right but he could still feel his eyes all over him.

"You're very handsome, you know," he said.

Anders shoved himself to his feet and took a step backward. "What do you want?"

"What? Nothing. It was just a compliment."

"I'm an idiot. The stammering, the refusing to meet my eyes, the defensiveness, you really had me fooled. It's a shame you couldn't keep it in your pants long enough to keep it up."

"I don't know what you're-"

"Drop it! Who are you working for? The Coterie? The Carta? Maker knows, there's a long list of people who want to drive me out of here. Well, which is it?"

The boy stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled. "I'm sorry. I was trying to take you in peacefully."

"Templars? You'd set Templars on your own kind?"

The boy shrugged and stood. "I lied about the sister too. I do have a brother, though, in the Gallows. I hope you understand."

Anders launched a fistful of winter's grasp at him. "I hope he does."

The boy dodged the attack. The ice shattered uselessly against one of the suspension beams. A Templar burst in. Anders recognised him from the descriptions of shaking mages.

"Karras," he hissed.

"That's me," Karras said. "And you're the infamous Darktown healer."

Anders let one eye wander while trying to keep both Karras and the boy in sight. Fuck. His staff was in the back room too. Where in hell was Fenris anyway? He must have heard something.

Karras drew his sword. Anders let loose a cone of cold, hoping to trap the two of them at least for a second. It caught the tips of their toes as they hopped backward but it was weak without the amplification of his staff. He'd been relying too much on that recently. Too much on a lot of things. He'd been getting less cautious, getting complacent, the very things an apostate mage should never do. Karras' boots crunched the thin line of ragged ice as he stepped over it and the boy glowed red and hit him with a spell. It made Anders' back arch up, his hands go limp by his side and his toes dangle almost off the ground. The blood magic hammered at him harder than any Templar's shield or pommel.

"Don't kill him!" Karras barked.

"It's not an exact science," the boy snapped back but he released Anders.

Anders sagged, as nauseous as if he'd been the one losing blood. He fell down onto his haunches. He forced himself to breathe and catalogue everything. Karras was stomping toward him. The boy was relaxing for now. He had a few moments before Karras was upon him. A few moments before the boy could cast that spell again. Anders sent a quick rejuvenation spell through himself and sprang back onto his feet. Justice roared and bounced around the inside of his skull like a loose ball bearing but Anders held him back. He wanted to spare the boy if he could and Vengeance spared no one. Anders threw up a shield around himself. Karras' non-magical shield bashed against it and shunted him, shield and all, backwards, but it held.

"Stay out of range," Karras ordered.

The boy retreated to the furthest corner of the room. That made things easier. Anders let the shield flicker out just long enough to send a ball of lightning at him. It caught him full in the chest. Anders grinned fiercely as it cooked him in his plate. He could see the metal melt into his skin, gluing his breastplate to it, warping and distorting the Chantry sun as badly as Karras warped its values. He screamed and swore as he flailed to take it off. His sword fell to the floor, his shield slid down his forearms on its strapping. The smell of burning flesh already choked the air. Anders filled both fists with fire and closed in to finish the job. Men like Karras deserved nothing less.

"Mage whore," Karras snarled.

He clasped his chest and wheeled around toward Anders as he stepped inside his guard. The smell coming off him, melted plate, burning, an open wound when he tore his hand away taking plate and skin with him on the palm, made Anders' eyes water. Anders raised his hands to wrap around Karras' skull. He'd watch and he'd _smell_ and he'd make Karras look as inhuman he should. He'd mutilate him beyond recognition and leave him alive but crippled. For every crying mage boy he'd had to console, for every time his stomach had wrenched as they recounted what this twisted bastard had done to them. He could already see the skin of Karras' cheeks reddening from just the heat. The skin would crinkle, boil and open up into a weal and-

Karras grabbed him around the waist, fingers clawing deep into the muscles of his sides. He shoved Anders. Bloody warriors and their bloody strength! Anders sailed backward. It was more than enough to interrupt his casting and make the fire disappear from his hands. His only saving grace was familiarity with the clinic. He managed not to stumble over anything and keep his footing by hanging onto one of the beds.

Karras hit him with Cleanse first. It sucked his shield and all of his usual bolsters away. Anders tried to re-cast them, only to be hit with Silence. Justice made an unholy clamour, trapped inside his body by the Silencing more thoroughly than Anders had ever been locked inside the Fereldan Tower.

"Now, mage," Karras said, in a voice that should have been hoarse with smoke and pleas as he _burned_. "You're as helpless as a babe without even your magic to help you. A handsome lad like you know how this goes, I'm sure."

"Come near me and I'll rip off your face the non-magical way."

"Brave words but you're shaking, sweetheart."

"Fuck you."

Karras laughed. "If I were you, I'd cooperate, and I might just forgive you for trying to kill me."

"Ser Karras," the boy said. Both Anders and Karras started, he'd stood in the corner in silence during their scuffle and apparently they'd both managed to forget about him. "You said we were just taking him to the Gallows."

"You shut up and do as you're told," Karras gestured wildly at his mutilated chest. "You're already on shaky ground for letting this happen."

"You said-"

"Do I have to remind you about your little brother? He's in the tender care of some friends of mine right now."

The boy looked sickly, even for a blood mage. "You wouldn't. He's only thirteen."

"He would," Anders said. "It's what he does. Isn't that right, Karras?"

"You're a fine one to talk. You've killed droves of my Order _Anders_. Brothers and sons and wives and daughters. So many that even the weakest, most robe-sympathising pussy back in the Gallows won't give a damn what I do to you. And you," Karras addressed the boy. "Don't think about trying any heroics. If I don't get back my mates are bound to miss me and they might just need a nubile young mage boy to comfort them."

"Don't talk about him like that!" the boy said. "I'm doing what you said, all right? There's no need to talk like that."

"You might want to cover your delicate little ears then."

Anders tried to ready himself for Karras' attack but he was so damned strong. He swept toward him and bore him down onto the bed. Onto, what Anders realised as the bare mattress hit his back, the bed he'd been stripping when that filthy bastard lying little blood mage had knocked on his door. Clumps of not-quite-dry blood were sticking to his back. _Fenris' blood_. Karras was panting like a bitch in heat on top of him. Anders struggled and Karras let his full weight rest on him. Anders could feel each sharp edge of his armour. The points of his gauntlets as he wrapped them around his forearms to pin him in place. The crags and still-seeping gaps of his ruined chestplate scraped against Anders' bare chest. Anders wrenched an arm free and punched his vile, leering face. The gauntlet tried to close over his wrist again and Anders jerked his hand free to punch again. Karras chuckled, a low sound that went through them both. Anders smashed his fist into the bridge of his nose. It wasn't quite enough to break it but he heard the pulpy squelch as it bust. Karras shifted his weight. His armoured knees dug into Anders' thighs, he leaned into Anders' trapped arm, making his shoulder spasm underneath him. He grabbed Anders' still-flailing arm with both free hands and shoved it into the mattress. Anders' vision filled with his bloody face, his bloody beard and he pushed a rough kiss onto his lips. Anders grit his teeth together but he could still feet Karras' wet tongue on him. He could still taste Karras' blood as it seeped into his mouth.

Of course, that was the moment Fenris chose to appear.

He heaved Karras off Anders and dragged him to his feet with one hand. He held Anders' staff in the other.

"Mage," he barked, and tossed Anders his staff.

Anders caught it in both hands. Fenris swung Karras into one of the beams. He brought his other hand around as he slammed him into it. He curled into his fist as his markings lit up and thrust it into Karras' chest.

"Get the elf," Karras barked.

Anders could hear the echo of the blockage in Karras' lungs. The strain in his voice as Fenris' eyes narrowed and he moved his phased fist upward.

"Quick!" Anders yelled.

"Thrall him!"

"Fenris, kill him now!"

Too late. The boy aimed a spell at Fenris and he had to throw himself away from Karras to avoid it. He made another grab for Karras but was forced back again as another spell came between them. He was forced to abandon Karras and pick another target. His whole body lit up and grew translucent as he streaked after the boy, whose spells went right through him and came out the other side. Anders had to throw himself off the bed and crouch down beside it to avoid them as they went overhead. Karras was scattered as well, he took cover behind the beam Fenris had thrown him against. Karras waited for a gap between spells and leaned out behind it.

"Fenris!" Anders yelled.

The warning came too late. Karras hit Fenris with Cleanse and he solidified right in front of the boy, whose face became the very picture of incontinent fear as Fenris raised his fist. The boy whimpered but he squeezed his forearm, spilling blood out into the air around him. Fenris took an instinctive half-step back and the boy cast. The change was immediate. All of Fenris' bearing, Fenris always carried himself as if he was about to lunge, disappeared. His shoulders slumped. His chin dropped toward his chest. His arms fell by his side, his hands loosening from what had been clenched fists to dangle uselessly. Even his knees sagged, as if it was an effort to remain standing.

Shit.

"He's really strong," the boy said. He twitched his fingers and Fenris took a stumbling step forward. "Wow."

"He had his whole fist inside me," Karras said. "Maybe I should return the favour."

Anders twirled his staff to wield the bladed end and sprang out of his crouch. His knee shrieked in pain but he threw himself after Karras at full pelt. The bastard should have worn his helm. Anders could see the side of his neck. He'd puncture it. He'd tear out his throat. He'd _kill_ him.

The boy moved Fenris in front of him. Anders had to pull himself back so hard he staggered. The weight of his staff and the unspent momentum almost sent him over but he stabbed the blunt end of it into the ground to steady himself. He could feel Justice's panic, if Justice could ever be said to feel such a thing, as faint as the drumming of a moth's wing. Anders shuffled backward and lifted his staff to hold it across himself, like a shield.

"How long can you keep that elf at bay?" Karras asked.

"I think..." the boy sounded half-drunk now. "A while. He's full of _lyrium_."

"Lyrium?"

"Yes but he's strong. Really strong. And he's fighting me."

"Shame. All right, mage. Put the staff down and let's end this farce."

Karras took a step forward. Anders lashed out with the staff in a wide arc that pushed Karras back.

"Grab him," Karras said.

Fenris moved forward. He inched at first, as if trudging through water. The boy grunted under his breath, twitched and strummed his fingers, and Fenris started to stride normally as he truly cemented his control. Anders held onto his staff white-knuckle tight and retreated as far back as he could, until he felt the ridges of a shelf rattle across his back. Fenris still advanced. Anders struck out with the middle of his staff, only to have it grabbed from his hand. The wood creaked and bent in Fenris' fist, almost breaking down the middle, before he tossed it away. Anders pressed back against the shelf, wishing he could sink inside it. Wishing he could disappear and be anywhere but here with no magic, no Justice, no back up.

"Fenris?"

Fenris looked up at him and for a moment Anders thought he'd actually managed to break the spell but the eyes that looked back at him were blank. Fenris grabbed him around the waist. Anders dug in his heels and pushed against Fenris with all his weight but he still managed to drag him across the floor, skinning his heels as Anders dug in harder. He tossed him down at Karras' feet as if he was a sack of dirty laundry. Anders shoved himself back up on one arm. Karras kicked him in the knee with one heavy-booted foot and his world went white with pain. When his vision had cleared, he was sprawled on his back with Karras' boot resting above the same knee. Anders could feel it was broken even with that small pressure.

"Pin him down," Karras said.

"I don't know how much longer I can hold the elf," the boy protested.

"You'd damn well better find a way to hold him long enough."

Anders tried to rise up. To somehow slide his knee out of the pincer of Karras' boot and the floor, wrench himself free and fight, but Karras pressed down at the slightest twitch and sent his whole body spasming with the pain of it. Karras laughed at the shriek it drew out of him.

Fenris' knees thudded down either side of Anders' head. The noise rang in his ears. The bottom fell out of Anders' stomach as he realised there was nothing he could do. He watched Fenris lean over him, felt his hands close around his wrists and pull them overhead as he settled back. This was happening and there wasn't a fucking thing he could do. He twisted his wrists in Fenris' hands anyway, even if all it served to do was rub them raw against a grip that was used to wielding swords heavier than a man. A twinge in Anders' knee made him stop. Karras had lifted his foot. The way Fenris had drawn his hands over his head arched Anders' back off the floor and gave his hips an inviting cant. Anders tried to wriggle into a position that was less appealing, less damn familiar, but every twist only set his strength in a losing battle against Fenris'. He settled back against the floor, panting from the exertion, cursing his decrepit old, weak body. Karras stood over him, eyes intent on his bare chest as it rose and fell.

"Aren't you a sight for sore eyes?" he said.

Anders kicked out at him with his uninjured leg. Karras stepped out of reach, then stepped back, a motion as neat as a step of the Marigold. He crouched down between Anders' legs and curled his fingers into Anders' waistband. The cold tips of his gauntlets brushed the hot skin of Anders' hip bones. Even that intrusion was too much. Anders kicked up a flurry, even with his injured leg. His calf flopped uselessly on its broken knee and slapped against the floor, sending shocks of agony all the way up his spine and its blows were barely blows at all. His healthy leg at least landed a few kicks on Karras' side, even if they resounded against his armour. Karras 'tssk'ed under his breath. He yanked on hand out of Anders' trousers to grab the offending leg by the ankle, then held it still as he shifted his knee on top so he could pin it underneath him.

Anders pressed back into the floor but Karras' hand followed him. It returned to the waistband of his trousers. This time the cold shock of the gauntlet made all of the tiny hairs stand up on his skin as if they too were trying to push him away. Anders made himself stare at the ceiling. The thatch wasn't holding, he noted idly, there'd be another leak if they had rain again.

Karras tore through his thin breeches as easily as if they were tissue. Anders swallowed hard on the gasp that tried to escape from his throat. Not that Karras would have heard it anyway over the hungry growl that escaped from his own. Anders twitched and flinched as Karras continued to peel away his breeches, the only movement he was allowed with Fenris' vice grip at one end and Karras' weight at the other. Each time the threads snagged on Karras' gauntlets, resisting him, he tore harder. He didn't even leave the rags to settle under Anders' body. He ripped those away too, baring Anders' backside to the dirt-tracked floor.

Anders couldn't move even to draw one knee over himself. 'Couldn't even bring a hand down to cover his limp cock. All he could do was lay there, bared naked to the clammy Darktown air and Karras' greedy eyes. He made himself think about the roof. He could use the gold Hawke gave him for healing Fenris to fix it. Or perhaps one of his patients was a roofer. There were lots of skilled refugees going idle and most of them owed him favours.

Karras stood up, taking his weight with him. Anders heard the rustle and clank that meant he was divesting himself of his armour.

Anders turned his head as far as it would go. The boy was standing not far from him. He had his back turned.

 _Coward_ , Anders thought.

A drop of water splashed onto the side of Anders' face and he looked up to see where it had come from. Another joined it as he realised it was from the ends of Fenris' hair. Not Fenris', he corrected himself. This blank thrall, whose hair was still wet from _his_ bath and who could only move because his healing had allowed it. Whose hands were still locked around Anders' wrists, as still and immovable as manacles.

As he watched, Fenris turned his head but a fraction of an inch. More water dropped onto Anders' cheeks with the movement. Fenris' fingers twitched against Anders' wrists.

"Fenris?"

Whitehot anger flashed over Fenris' face for a moment and then was gone just as suddenly, replaced by the blank mask. Water continued to drip-drip from his hair but all it did was pool in his clavicles.

"Fenris!"

Karras settled again between Anders' legs. Anders refused to look but he had the impression of clammy skin, shod of its armour, against his legs. His rough hands were free of their gauntlets as he delved them under Anders' thighs and spread him open.

"No," Anders moaned. He tried to yank his arms down out of Fenris' hold, straining his arm muscles to their fullest.

"Wake up!" he yelled at Fenris. "Wake up, you bastard! Wake up!"

Karras tossed one of his legs over his shoulder. He still had his breastplate on and the metal stuck to Anders' skin.

"WAKE UP!"

The dry tip of Karras' cock pushed inside him. Anders screamed. He'd had every intention of holding it back but he couldn't. He screamed his throat raw as Karras seized his hips and buried himself deep in one, long thrust with no lubricant or preparation. It wasn't even the pain. That was bad. Every inch of Karras stung him as if he were barbed, Anders' body clamped down tight against the intrusion. But it wasn't that. It was far from the worst pain he'd ever felt. It was the knowledge that Karras was inside him. That Karras was taking him here on the floor of his own home, in full view of a stranger and Fenris. It was the groan that it pulled out of Karras, ripe with pleasure despite his screams. It was the way Karras stroked his thumb over his hip like a lover.

It was that this was only the start of it.

Anders tried to scream a stream of the worst curses he could at Karras but it came out as an unintelligible squeal. Another noise burst from the corner and overlaid that. A sob? Anders could barely make sense of that. He wasn't sobbing. _He wouldn't._ No. It was the boy. The blood mage. What right did he have to cry when he'd caused this? But he was, even louder than Anders' screams had been.

"Shut up," Karras managed.

The sobs receded into whimpers. Karras remained still, still buried all the way inside Anders.

"Fuck, you're tight," Karras said. "Almost hurts my cock."

Anders turned his head to the side and pursed his lips. His insides ached just from the way they were stretched. The way he'd been brutally forced open to accept Karras' disgusting- His- Anders couldn't even face the word. He couldn't face that it was _inside_ him. He couldn't face the moan that Karras let out as he moved a fraction. He couldn't. He couldn't.

Karras pulled all the way out of him to leave only the ache, then he slammed back in even harder than the first time. Anders forced himself to take ragged breaths. He forced himself to focus on that, not the bright pain that suddenly bloomed in his lower half. Karras repeated the same motion again and again, until Anders could feel stinging cuts opening up around his entrance. Instinctively, he tried to heal them, to find only the emptiness the Silencing had left. Then Karras changed the motion, so that he never left Anders' body only varied the shallowness of the thrust. The pace became more punishing, each deep thrust ground his arse into the floor, then lifted him off it as Karras moved to thrust again. Anders hated how his body loosened under the intrusion as it would have for a lover.

Karras' grunty breaths popped in his ears. He could hear the boy sniffling too but that seemed far-off. Fenris' even breathing above him seemed ever louder than his own. Anders clamped his eyes shut but that only seemed to make the sounds and sensations stronger, so he opened them again.

Anders wondered if he looked as dead-eyed as Fenris.

Karras' thrusts became even more brutal. He drove in, pulled out, drove in, pulled out, drove in, hard enough for Anders' head to knock back against Fenris' knees every time. His insides felt scoured. Each bash of Karras' cock sent shooting pains up and down his spine. Karras' movements slowed only when something tore inside him, coating them both in tacky blood.

Anders changed his mind.

This was the worst pain he'd ever felt.

Karras' grip tightened on his hips.

"No!" Anders said. He tried to wriggle off, scramble away, _anything_ but there was no room to move even an inch.

Karras spent himself inside him. Anders let out a choked scream as he was filled with warm sperm. As he was held there while every last drop was emptied inside him. Anders' stomach churned at the obscene noise when Karras pulled out of him. He tossed Anders' leg off his shoulder as if it was a stray hair.

"I can't hold the elf much longer!" the boy said.

That much was probably true. Anders could feel Fenris' grip loosening.

"Pity," Karras said. Anders heard him moving around, no doubt covering himself again with his Templar armour and all the lies it represented. "I'd have liked the elf to suck my cock until I was ready for another round."

"We need to go, Ser. Quickly."

"All right. All right. It's your lucky day, apostate. You get to stay in your little rathole a while longer. I'll make sure to come and visit every now and then."

"Please, Ser."

Karras snorted. Anders heard his heavy footfalls and the swing of the door. The boy didn't follow immediately.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Fuck you," Anders said, thickly.

He lingered for a moment, then ran after Karras. Anders didn't know how long he was left there exactly, pinned down full of blood and come, but it was a while before the hold on Fenris began to loosen and it happened slowly. Anders doubted he could have moved anyway, not with the combination of a broken knee and the internal damage Karras had left but it didn't stop him wishing Fenris would hurry up and throw off the blood magic.

When he did, Fenris jumped to his feet. He threw himself across the room and peered out into Darktown.

"Gone," he growled.

He slammed the door shut and barred it. He turned back to Anders and looked for half a second before blanching away. His posture was defeated, almost as if he had been thralled again. Anders turned his face back into the floor, so his gaze could fall on nothing but the dirt.

"Happy now?" Anders said, in a voice that sounded nothing like his own.

"What?"

"I said," that was more like his own voice, although rougher than he'd intended. "Are you happy now? Are you happy now you've seen me put in my place?"

"No. No Anders, I wouldn't- I would _never_ -"

"Liar! This is where you think all mages belong. This is what you want."

"This is not what I want for anyone."

"Then why didn't you come?" Anders roared. He even managed to push himself up onto the heels of his hands, spurred on by his anger, and look Fenris in the face. "Where the hell where you? Where the fucking hell were you when I was being attacked by a blood mage and a Templar alone?"

Fenris at least had the good grace to look ashamed. He stared at Anders as if he was the last thing he wanted to see but didn't dare to look away.

"I didn't hear," Fenris said, so softly and quietly that Anders wouldn't have heard it if it hadn't been the only noise in his clinic.

"You didn't _hear_?"

"I was bathing. My head was beneath the surface of the water. I could hear the sounds but they were muted. I didn't know you were being attacked. I came as soon as I realised... You must believe me, Anders. I would not have stood for this."

"I must, must I?"

Fenris winced. "You're hurt," he said. "And unclean." He pulled a blanket from one of the other beds and stooped down to wrap it around Anders.

Anders lashed out at him with one fist simply because he was there. Fenris, of all people, had no right to be so damned reasonable. Not when he needed someone to storm and rage at. As it was, he only caught Anders' fist and pushed it down gently by his side. He wrapped Anders in the blanket, careful not to even brush bare skin with the tip of an errant finger.

"Fuck you! Fuck off!" Anders said, snatching the blanket away. "I don't need you to-" his voice broke in the middle of the sentence. "I don't need you to- Fuck- Swaddle me like a fucking baby."

Fenris made a move as if to take the blanket from his shaking hands, then thought better of it.

"Where is your lyrium?" he asked.

"Why don't you just let me suck that big glob off your chin since you're my damn nursemaid all of a sudden? Or do I need to get someone to hold _you_ down while I take it from you?"

"I'll find it myself."

Anders clutched the blanket to him, glad of its cover despite himself. Fenris moved around, vials and bottles clinking as he searched through the shelves. He brought the blanket up over his face as fat tears began to race down his cheeks.

"This will go more quickly if you direct me," Fenris said.

Anders took a moment to decide whether he wanted healing more than he wanted to spite Fenris. Definitely the latter but lyrium was a drug too and he wanted to be able to step outside of himself if even only for a few hours far more.

"It's in the back room, under a loose floorboard near the right corner."

Anders waited until Fenris left the room and swiped his eyes with the blanket, so he could look up at Fenris with dry eyes when he returned. He had one hand clasped around a full bottle of lyrium and a new set of clothes draped over the other arm. Anders snatched the lyrium without so much as a 'thanks' and drank all of it in a few gulps. The languor it provided was almost enough to drown out the clamour of Justice as he returned at full pelt, screaming for vengeance. Anders slumped against Fenris, too exhausted now to resist his help as he lifted him off the floor and set him down on one of the beds.

"Heal," he said, piling more blankets on top of Anders.

Anders did. He healed the broken knee and the tear deep inside him, he healed his skinned feet and his bruised wrists, so he could settle his head into the pillows with no distractions.

"The Templar," Fenris said. "What was his name?"

"Hm?"

"Anders, stay with me for a moment. What was the Templar's name?"

"Karras..."

Anders let himself drift off but he heard Fenris stamp away and he heard him growl 'Karras' under his breath.


	2. Straw Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the attack, Fenris is left to comfort Anders.

Retribution should be swift, as sudden as cracks of Fade light appearing on a man's skin, but it rarely was. Sometimes you waited in an abandoned mansion for long months of nothing. Sometimes you followed a trail all the way to the docks, to find your assailant had boarded a ship to the Gallows and the way had closed behind him. Fenris let out a loud Tevine curse that startled a few of the dockworkers into looking up from their work, then quickly looking away when they caught sight of him. Fenris scowled at their bent heads and their avoidant eyes, cursing them for being merely meek elves and refugees and not raiders or thieves when he so dearly needed to tear something apart. His head still rang with Anders' screams. The afterimages of the event were still there when he closed his eyes. Eyes that he had not been able to even blink for a moment's respite from the act taking place in front of him. An act he shouldn't by rights have even seen. Both acts of intimacy and agony should be private. They should certainly not be witnessed by someone who was neither a lover nor even a friend.

But he had been made to do far worse than just watch.

Fenris curled his fingers into fists so tight his nails bit into his hands. Worse than even the screams was the memory of Anders' pulse thrumming against his hands. Fenris was certain he could now draw a map of every last blue vein on the pale, paper-thin skin of Anders' wrists from how hard he'd concentrated on trying to free them. The memory of them was seared there, along with the dram of Anders' heartbeat, along with his failure. Apparently no matter how hard he shucked off Danarius' reins, another blood mage could take them up just as easily.

Fenris had half a mind to cross to the Gallows anyway but common sense won out. Yes, he could confront Karras in the Gallows with the rest of the Templar order at his heels but it would likely be the last thing he ever did. So Fenris forcibly turned himself away from the docks and stared in the opposite direction.

His first thought was of going to Hawke and his next was to scold himself for being so cowardly. He should not have left Anders drugged and alone in the clinic for as long as he had. Friend or not, he wasn't the wild animal Anders had so often accused him of being. He set off toward the clinic.

He had expected to find Anders still sleeping but instead he was walking up and down the clinic, one of the blankets Fenris had piled on top of him tied around his waist in a way that reminded Fenris uncomfortably of a Templar's skirts. Although he had healed the worst of it, the signs of the attack were still there, not least in his downcast eyes and frenetic roving from one of the clinic's cots to the next. There was dirt still in his hair from where his head had been pushed against the packed dirt, the only flooring the buildings of Darktown ever had. There was blood and the Maker knew what else in a dark patch on the blanket near his rear. There were bruises and scrapes that hadn't quite been lapped by the waves of healing magic leftover from a too-hard grip or the tip of a gauntlet. There were red rings around each of his wrists. Fenris tried not to fixate on them. Not to fixate on any of it. He coughed once to announce himself.

Anders stilled so suddenly it came with a rustle of the ends of the blanket around his feet. He turned a look on Fenris that pinned him in place far more surely than a glyph of paralysis.

"Get out," Anders said.

"You should not be alone."

Anders chuckled, a strangely glutinous sound as if it was being heaved up through his throat. "I'm never alone. Justice is right here, telling me how this is but a minor setback to our cause, how we should be ever so glad we have proof of what the Templars are, as if we didn't have enough already. He's not terribly knowledgeable about what being human's all about but then neither are you and since you're my only two options, I think I'd rather stick with him."

"I will not leave you."

"Oh good, since your company did me oh so many favours earlier."

"Anders-"

"Don't."

"I did not want to harm you."

Anders snorted. "You've talked about nothing but harming my kind since the first time you clapped eyes on me."

"I was thralled."

"I know you were. I know that it was blood magic that moved your body. I believe that at least. What I have a hard time believing is that you didn't enjoy it. Was it everything you imagined in all your dirty little fantasies? A magister being totally degraded and debased right at your feet?"

Fenris knew he should not respond. This conversation was as trapped as a stretch of the bandit-besieged Wounded Coast, claws ready to snap at your heels if you took one careless step. But he had neither Isabela's dexterity nor Varric's cunning and much like those same pitfalls on the Coast, he blundered right into them.

"You don't feature in my fantasies, mage."

Anders stalked toward him, looking far more like a revenant than a man. Fenris felt the absence of his breastplate more than ever as Anders crowded him against the door, the heavy bar against the small of his back and Anders in front of him with only a stained blanket to cover himself. He _stank_. He smelled of clamminess, of a lyrium potion that had soured in his mouth, of far too much blood and the ammonia smell of dried sperm. It turned Fenris' stomach as it hit him. He should have stayed. He should have stayed with Anders and not left him alone with his thoughts so they could fester like the mess congealing between his legs.

"You feature in mine," Anders said.

Fenris shrank back against the door. Anders took half a step toward him to close the distance he'd opened up. Fenris could feel the heat of his skin, sticky and feverish, although he didn't quite touch him. Something flashed in his Anders' eyes as Fenris tried to cringe back even further but Fenris couldn't even hope to read what it was.

"Anders," he warned, as his markings lit up all at once.

Anders didn't even flinch. The reflections of blue light dappled his skin, casting grotesque shadows that made his eyes look even more hollow than they had already.

"It's not like how I imagine it with Hawke," Anders said and his voice was hollow too. "I treat you like an animal. I throw you down, push your face into the floor and I fuck you until you come just from the feel of it, then I flip you onto your back and fuck you again with my hand pressed into your abdomen so I can feel myself in you, inside and out. Or sometimes I push you down onto your knees and stick my cock down your throat, grab your head and push it up, so I can see the hate in your eyes."

"Stop it."

"No, since you're so eager to help why don't you let me fuck you?"

Fenris forced himself to stand still, even if the words made him want to phase through the door. "I know what you're doing."

"Do you now?"

"You are trying to make me uncomfortable, so that I leave."

"How do you know that I just don't want to fuck you harder than Karras fucked me?"

Fenris blanched but his markings dulled. "Step away from me, Anders. I don't want to hurt you but I can't guarantee I'll be able to stop myself if you keep pressing this."

Anders gave another ugly snort and pushed away from Fenris. "You know, if anyone had asked what my worst nightmare was a few days ago I could have given them a retinue of Darkspawn in the Deep Roads and this recurring one I have where the walls in my clinic just keep getting smaller and smaller until I'm trapped in a box no bigger than my head with my limbs all twisted up and contorted to make myself fit. This feels rather like that one, actually, except it's my head that feels like it's shrinking. It's nice to know that whatever my subconscious dredges up, the Maker can go one step better by not only allowing something like this to happen but putting you on my doorstep when it does."

Fenris shifted from one foot to the other and took a few determined steps into the main room.

Anders sighed. "You're really not going to leave, are you?"

"No."

Anders sagged onto the tangled bedding he'd vacated, whatever force had been moving him suddenly sapped. He fiddled with the knot that held the blanket around his waist.

"Don't tell anyone. Please. Don't tell any of the others what happened."

"I will tell Hawke."

"You're determined not to do anything I ask, aren't you?"

"I won't tell the others. It's not my place. But Hawke should know if only so he doesn't try to drag you out on one of his errands."

Anders pursed his lips. He looked to be on the verge of tears, so Fenris averted his eyes.

"I will run you a bath."

Fenris ducked into the back room. The tub was still full of ruddy water from where he'd bathed earlier, now with a scum of dried blood and dirt on its surface. He tipped it out into the drain and scrubbed it clean with the water in the pump until there was almost a shine on the tarnished metal, then filled it to the rim. He could hear Anders shifting around in the other room, although he tried not to hear the sudden hitches in his breathing. He gave Anders a few more minutes before emerging, making as much noise as possible.

Anders started anyway when he saw him. "You're light on those little elfin feet," he said.

"The bath's full. I could not heat it."

"I think I have enough mana in me for a fireball or two."

Anders pushed against the bed to lift himself. Fenris might not have noticed the wince if he hadn't been staring intently at Anders' face, looking for some indication as to what he needed. Fenris hurried toward him and offered the brunt of his shoulder.

"I'm fine," Anders said.

"You're in pain."

"Move."

Fenris did as he asked. Anders pushed himself up with a determined set to his jaw that hid any further winces. When he walked toward the back room it was with a strange gait that Fenris cursed himself for not noticing sooner. The blankets he'd drawn around himself were most likely hiding a limp, either from the damage to his knee or the damage to his insides. Fenris followed him. Heat _whumped_ past him, rustling his hair, as Anders cast a couple of small, focused fireballs to heat up the tub. He remembered what Anders had said about the clinic and kindling and wondered if Anders had hoped to start an inferno that razed the whole place to the ground, Anders and Fenris with it. He stared at the steaming tub.

"I need help," he whispered, so quietly he most likely hoped even Fenris wouldn't hear. "To get in."

Fenris offered an arm. Anders dropped the blankets from his waist. Fenris caught just a glimpse of the mess on the backs of Anders' legs and wanted to vomit. He steeled himself as Anders leaned on his arm and stepped into the tub. He wrapped his arms around Anders' chest to help ease him into a sitting position and the overfull tub splashed them both as Anders' weight displaced the water.

"Get me a healing potion, please," Anders said.

Fenris pried up the loose floorboard where Anders had hidden his stock of lyrium potions and found one dull red one beneath those glowing blue. He handed it to Anders, who poured some into the tub and drank the rest. Once he had taken and disposed of the empty bottle, Fenris sank down onto the floor with his back rested against the tub. Fenris concentrated on the little splashes he could hear, the way the water made a pleasant little 'tinging' noise as it sloshed against the sides of the bath in time with Anders' movements, until they stopped. Fenris resisted the urge to look behind him. Anders needed privacy right now.

"I can feel him everywhere," Anders said.

"Will another healing potion help?"

"I'm as healed as I'm going to get. I'd already used up a lot of mana before all of this and even if I take another dozen lyrium potions, I'm not up to another massive heal right now. Could you get me a cloth and soap? They're with my shaving things, 'should be in a bundle under the potions."

Fenris retrieved them, a lump of cheap, fatty soap and a rough cloth for scrubbing. He handed them both to Anders, who took them in silence. He held onto Fenris' forearm as he moved to return to his station in front of the bath.

"Help me get the dirt out of my hair. Please."

Fenris kneeled down behind the tub. It was now so dirty that the water revealed nothing but the position still afforded Anders extra privacy should he feel he needed it. Fenris took the soap from his hands. He had expected Anders to recoil from his touch but he didn't. Instead, he leaned into his fingers as he worked them into his hair with a small amount of soap to lather them. Anders tipped his head back against the rim of the tub. His eyes were closed lightly, pale lashes fanned across his cheeks, not squeezed shut. Fenris worked his way across the crown of his head, piling the soapy hair on top.

"You were Danarius' slave for a long time," Anders said.

Fenris' fingers paused where they were delved deep in Anders' hair and Anders did blanch then.

"Sorry," Anders said. He tugged his hair loose from Fenris' fingers and sat up in the tub. He drew his knees up, shoulders tight as he wrapped his arms around them. The straggly ends of his hair spilled dirt and soap down his hunched back. "That's none of my business."

Fenris cupped some water in his hands and attempted to rinse the soap out of Anders' hair.

"I was eighteen when I received the markings," Fenris said. "Perhaps a little younger. Or older. I may have belonged to him for a short time before then."

Fenris cast his eyes around for something better than his hands to hold water in. He found a battered-looking tin pan in the same pile of bric-a-brac he'd fetched Anders a change of clothes from earlier. He filled that with clean water from the pump, reasoning that the water from the bath would only make Anders' hair dirtier at this point. Anders watched him owlishly over his drawn up knees.

"It's cold," Fenris said.

Anders lifted a finger to heat it and Fenris returned to kneeling behind him. Anders tipped his head back and Fenris poured the water over his hair, leaving it as clean as Fenris had ever seen it.

"Did he-?" Anders started, then ducked his head back behind his knees, leaving the question unasked.

"You want to know if Danarius violated me?"

There was a small movement. A twitch of Anders' shoulderblades and a slight lift of his head which may have been his attempt to nod without uncurling.

"I don't know."

Another spasm. "How can you not know?"

"We were... intimate. I thought that I wanted it. I thought I wanted a lot of things when I was a slave."

"Sorry."

"It was a long time ago. Enough time has passed. Enough time will pass for you too, eventually."

Silence stretched out between them, the water growing cooler and ever more murky, until Anders broke it.

"Karras ripped my only pair of trousers."

"I thought I gave you a change?"

"They're far too small. I assume you got them from over there? That pile is full of donations my patients gave me and because I treat mostly manual labourers with my build, the ones in my size get given away when their own are too bloody or soiled to wear."

"Ah. I'll find you something."

Fenris dug through the pile that he had assumed was full of Anders' spare clothes. He wondered how he had ever came to that conclusion, there were children's and women's clothes in here too and such an array of sizes that they couldn't possibly belong to one man. He picked out a voluminous shirt that would be overlarge enough to cover most of Anders.

"My towels and smallclothes are in the chest out there," Anders said. "People don't try to steal them for some reason."

Fenris gathered them and left it all in a little pile by the bath.

"Can you help me get out?"

Fenris offered his arm. The water sploshing out of the bath when Anders moved soaked his feet and Anders himself soaked the rest of him when he leaned heavily against him. Fenris wondered if something wasn't still badly damaged inside him and only sheer stubborness had kept him going for this long. Fenris made sure to keep his gaze turned away from Anders even as he snatched up and handed him the towel. He turned away when Anders dried himself until a sharp intake of breath made him turn back.

Anders had stepped into his smalls but they lay around his ankles.

"I can't," he muttered. "I can't bend that way."

Fenris didn't dare to comment, sure that anything he said would only make things worse. He picked up the shirt from the floor first and handed it to Anders, so he could drop it over his head. That at least preserved his modesty while Fenris hitched the smalls up over Anders' thighs far enough that he could finish the job himself. Anders glared at him, as if daring him to say anything at all.

"You should rest," Fenris said.

Anders nodded and slumped his weight against him again. Fenris walked him back into the main room of the clinic and helped him onto another of the beds, one that wasn't covered in sweat and blood.

"Did you kill Karras?" Anders asked, with his eyes closed.

"No. He had already returned to the Gallows by the time I caught up with him."

"Good. If anyone's going to kill him, it's going to me." Fenris had expected some of Justice's resonance in that response but there was only Anders, voice thin and tired.

"I could not find the blood mage either."

"To murder him? He didn't have a choice."

"There is always a choice."

"Not for him. Not for much longer anyway. Karras will have taken him in and the best a known blood mage can hope for is death. He'll probably fuck him too and his brother. He's notorious among the mages I speak to. I think he and Ser Alrik divvy them up in some sick way, so Karras gets all the boys and Alrik gets all the girls."

Fenris tucked the blankets in around Anders. He remembered all the things he'd said in the Gallows and he knew Anders remembered them too. He did not want them twisted into support of something like that.

"He said he'd come back," Anders said.

"Then he will find us both rested and ready for him."

Fenris waited until Anders finally let sleep take him before he moved away from the bed. He didn't have his coin purse, so he did the next best thing. He marched up to the first beggar he saw who wasn't about to collapse on his feet and sent him to fetch Hawke, with the message to give him some coin for his trouble and that it was urgent. As an afterthought, he told him to add that he should bring a spare pair of trousers. If the beggar thought the request strange, he didn't mention it. Fenris expected that the promise of coin went some way to dampening his curiosity. That done, Fenris returned to the clinic to pace in front of the doors.

Anders started out of sleep at every small noise. He went as far as to sit upright when Hawke rapped at the door and called inside.

"It's all right," Fenris said. "Go back to sleep."

Anders, still half-asleep, did as he said. Too muddled to protest even on the principle that it was Fenris asking him. Hawke practically jumped inside the clinic. He looked Fenris over frantically from top to bottom.

"Are you all right?" he asked. "Are you still hurt?"

Fenris shook his head. He barred the doors behind Hawke again. Hawke was peering at him, brows furrowed, the very picture of concern. Fenris had no idea how to say this to someone like Hawke, who guarded over his collection of strays like his Mabari guarded its lamb bones. Hawke stared at him for a while, until it became obvious that nothing was forthcoming then looked around. His eyes fell first on the bloody covers of the vacated bed, then the deep dents in the dirt where Anders had struggled, the blood droplets there too, then Anders' sleeping form bundled up in another bed.

"Anders?" Hawke said. "What happened?"

"A Templar named Ser Karras."

Hawke paled. Fenris wondered if Hawke recognised the name, only to have it confirmed when he spoke again.

"No," Hawke said. "No."

"He raped Anders."

"But you were here with him."

"Karras was not alone. He was with a blood mage and I was thralled. I could do nothing." Fenris' fingers twitched, the tactile memory of Anders' wrists rising to the surface again.

"This can't have happened. It can't have. Varric pays to have people keep an eye on the clinic. I make sure everyone knows that I was a Red Iron and I'm good friends with the healer in Darktown. Aveline keeps an ear out for whisperings from the Templars in the Keep. He was protected. He was supposed to be protected-"

Anders stirred at Hawke's rising voice and he sucked in a breath to calm himself.

"It shouldn't have happened," Fenris agreed.

"We'll report him to the Knight-Captain."

"All it's within the Knight-Captain's power to do is to expel him from the Templar order. If that happens, he could go anywhere and we may never find him."

"I should have stayed with you both. Maker."

"Hawke. It is done, wishing will not reverse it."

"What am I supposed to do, Fenris? He told me to go and I knew I should have stayed but I didn't even put up a fight, I just left. This is my fault."

"This is _Karras'_ fault."

Hawke grew silent but Fenris could see the flicker in his eyes that meant he was still running through the possibilities, other worlds in which this hadn't happened, cataloguing every way in which he blamed himself.

"Hawke. I believe Karras will return, he threatened as much."

Fenris had known Hawke almost a year and in all that time he had always wondered how a man like Hawke, who fought only when he was given no other choice and spared whomever he could, could have ever been a mercenary. The expression on his face now answered that.

"Then we'll make sure the bastard doesn't leave," he said.

"For now, I believe Anders still needs healing."

"I'm not a spirit healer."

"But you know at least one healing spell and he was too exhausted to finish the job himself."

Hawke bowed over Anders' bed. He touched his hands to Anders' temples and sent the same tendrils of light through Anders' body that Anders tended to use when he was looking for any damage that wasn't obvious. He gave a grunt of exertion as he pumped a healing spell through him, sweat beading on his brow. Fenris caught him as he stumbled away.

"Maker, he must have been in agony," Hawke said. "He must have only patched up what he needed to and left the rest. I think I've gotten what was left, he did all the complicated bits, but he'll still be sore." He stared at Anders, gaze hard and furious. "His knee. That _bastard_ tore up his insides and it wasn't enough, he had to smash his knee as well. Maker have mercy, I can't- His wrists feel chafed too. Did he tie him up?"

"Yes," Fenris lied.

Hawke's gaze softened as he turned it back on Fenris. "Have you slept?"

"I slept after I was wounded."

"You were unconscious. That's not sleep."

"Did you bring trousers?"

"Oh, yes," Hawke said. He dipped a hand into his armour, armour and never robes because Hawke preferred not to hide in plain sight like Anders, and drew out a folded bundle. "I sold most of my spares for coin for this blasted Deep Roads expedition, so they're Carver's. They might be a little long, Carver's been growing like a weed since he was fourteen, but they should fit."

"Then I will rest."

Fenris took the bed nearest the door, a vanguard against any attackers should Hawke happen to fall asleep as well. He woke sometime later, still facing the door, to the murmured voices of Hawke and Anders.

"Sorry," Hawke said. "I shouldn't have hugged you, should I?"

"It's fine, Hawke," Anders said. His voice seemed lighter than it had before though still strained. "I needed a hug."

"Then have another."

Anders' voice came again, more muffled. "Thanks for the trousers."

"I wish I could do something more than give you trousers. I wish I'd been here, Anders."

"You can't be there for everyone all the time, Hawke. It's not your fault."

Fenris waited for them lapse into a silence. A silence that seemed far less strained than all of the previous ones that had punctuated his own interactions with Anders. He coughed more loudly than was natural and made a ridiculous pantomime of getting up from the bed. When he turned to face them, Anders was slowly pulling himself out of Hawke's embrace.

"I went and got some food from the house," Hawke said. "Carver can go without tongiht. He eats more than his fair share anyway. We left some for you."

Fenris took the food, some thick, floury bread packed with meat and greens, to the table Anders generally worked at. There he couldn't hear the words exchanged between Hawke and Anders if they continued to murmur, which they did. It seemed Hawke had been what Anders needed. He certainly looked better, if still a little hunted. Fenris returned to his sandwich. It wouldn't do to give them privacy in one way and rob it in another by staring at them. The cadence of their voices, Hawke's deep and rumbling, Anders' softer, was soothing if one couldn't understand the words. Fenris could almost drift back to sleep right at the table, half a sandwich dangling from his hand. Until a smack and a grunt from Hawke broke the rhythm.

Fenris looked up. He'd missed the moment but he could see the reaction. Hawke holding his hand over his browbone, Anders shrinking away.

"Sorry," Anders said. "I didn't mean to do that. Sorry."

Hawke dropped the hand from his eye. It looked swollen. He forced a grin onto his face. "It's all right. I'm sorry. I should have thought before...doing whatever I did to cause that."

"It's- Don't touch my wrist. Please."

Fenris' chest felt tight. He had done this. This was an aversion he'd planted in Anders, the way Danarius had planted lyrium under his skin. He didn't hear what Hawke said next over the roar in his ears. The mouthful of sandwich he'd bitten down on seemed to have lost all favour, turned to so much mulch in his mouth. He forced the rest of it down anyway. Rending it with his teeth, grinding it between them, choking it down had to be enough of a distraction until there were other things to rend, grind and choke.

The day wore on. Hawke cajoled Anders into resting every time he attempted to do anything more strenuous than walk around the room to stretch his legs. He turned patients away with a few words far more efficiently than Fenris would have been able to with a menacing look. When Darktown's day sounds drifted into night sounds, Hawke lit the lamps, a flicker of fire no bigger than a match head at his fingertips. He didn't appear to have the same qualms about using that sort of magic in Darktown as Anders. Once they were lit, Hawke returned to his vigil beside Anders, sitting on the bed next to his with his legs stretched toward him. Anders now had several books spread open across the bed and one especially large one open in his lap, all that had been required was the barest hint of a whim and Hawke had run scattering to get them. Fenris stalked around feeling like both an intruder and a spare part.

Fenris had expected this would last a few days, Hawke providing Anders with the constant comfort of his presence the way only a man like Hawke could, Fenris doing his best not to interrupt. Instead, the lamps had barely had time to cast a shadow before the stamp of heavy-booted feet cut through the rest of Darktown's night noises. The ruckus suggested more than one Templar this time.

Hawke leapt up at the noise. Anders pushed himself out of his covers, throwing books onto the floor as he scrambled for his staff. Fenris' skin thrummed as his markings lit up one by one.

Hawke slung his staff from his back. He held it aloft as he lifted the bar from the door and peered out.

"How many?" Fenris asked.

"Five- No, six. All in full helm except that piece of shit Karras. They're not causing quite the stir I'd have expected."

"Darktown residents learn not to notice things," Anders said.

"Are you sure you can handle this, Anders? Fenris and I can just as easily lead them away."

"Karras will be dealt with."

"You know, sometimes you sound exactly like Justice even without all the glowing and booming."

"I've told you, Hawke, we're the same."

Hawke opened his mouth to argue that point but as soon as the breath left him, the Templars were upon them.

"Surrender the apostate," a voice said, echoing inside a silverite helm.

"Find your own," Hawke said.

"What?"

"I said, find your own. This one's mine."

"Move aside."

Hawke did so, giving however many Templar were crowded against the door an unfettered view of Anders, standing leaning on his staff as if he often played host to large parties of Templars. Fenris moved as well. He backed against the wall and cooled his glow. The element of surprise may not be strictly necessary but it couldn't hurt. As they squeezed into the narrow doorway one by one, Fenris noticed small details. Hawke had described Templars in full helm but they weren't in full regalia. They were missing gauntlets and greaves, most of them had the sun-emblazoned chest pieces although some did not and all were wearing normal trousers not the red folds and pleats that hid the rest of their armour underneath. Not a single one of them carried a weapon. These were details that only made sense if this group were here for something other than to drag an apostate to the Gallows and the helms were simply a disguise.

Fenris would not believe it if he hadn't witnessed Karras' cruelty first hand. A man who'd destroy someone's kneecap simply for struggling when he was already thoroughly bound would certainly bring along his friends to revel in further humiliation.

Fenris wondered why Anders hadn't simply baked each one as they had filed into his clinic. Even he was fighting to keep himself still.

"Karras," Anders said.

"Hello, beautiful," Karras said.

There was a flicker of movement from Hawke but Anders held up a hand to still him. Even so, it drew Karras' attention.

"Hawke," Karras said. "You get everywhere, don't you?"

"I was just thinking the same about you. Though I don't have quite the same talent for slipping into people's rooms at night, I do pride myself on the fact that when I do it's because I'm invited."

"I saw you in the Gallows with your little brother the other day. _Strapping_ young lad, good _strong_ thighs-"

That was the spark that turned the standoff into a battle. Hawke swung his staff around so the heavy, ornamental end of it struck Karras so hard he reeled to the ground.

"Leave Karras alive!" Anders yelled.

Then the very air seemed to be full of magic as Hawke and Anders began to cast in unison. Glyphs appeared at the feet of the knot of Templars, drawing them into the centre, slowing them down, concentrating them in one area for ice to volley into their heads and knock off their helms when it didn't freeze them outright. A few of the faster-minded of them tried to cast Silence and Cleanse or whatever battery of talents they were meant to use to control mages but they were slowed to a crawl and Anders and Hawke were as swift as Fenris had ever seen them. Fenris streaked toward the struggling Templars, phased to avoid the devastating spells all around him. He joined his hands together and brought his fists down in an over-arching blow to shatter one of the frozen Templars. Static energy buzzed around him as a lighting bolt cooked the Templar beside him with a reek of burning skin and a tang of ruined metal. That was Anders' work. The glyphs winked out, the Templars sped back up. Fenris thrust his fist through the first one to lunge at him and tore out his stomach. His ears popped as two walls of force drove the remaining two Templars together, crushing and compacting them until they were a mangled mess barely recognisable as two separate entities. Fenris had seen some terrible things but he was certain that image would stay with him, as well as its chorus of squelches, blurts and yells. Especially since he was sure that kill was Hawke's.

Karras was laying where Hawke had struck him down.

The three of them converged on him. Closer to, Fenris could see that he was unconscious. Anders rested his chin on his staff and gave Hawke what might have been a smile had the situation been any different.

"Your apostate, am I?" he said.

Hawke blushed, obvious even behind his beard. "Of course. My apostate, my prickly elf, my cute little blood mage, my hairy-chested dwarf-"

"We should get on with this," Fenris interjected.

"Yes," Anders said.

He kneeled down and touched a bright drop of healing magic to the bruise on Karras' forehead. There was an audible click of joints as he straightened back up but he raised his hand again to stop Hawke from fussing. Karras woke quickly and pushed himself up onto his knees. He looked up at Anders first, grinning as if he couldn't read the expression on Anders' face. There was something of Justice in that expression. Slowly it seemed to dawn on Karras that while he was quite alone, Anders was not.

"Hawke," Anders said. "Hold him still."

Fenris felt the pressure suck at his ears again as Hawke employed force magic to send Karras onto his back. Karras choked as the skin around his neck whitened in a thin band. He brought his hands up to pull at it, the force resisting like a physical presence but, unlike a physical presence, impossible to pull away. Anders watched him struggle with that until he gave up on trying to pull it free and began sweeping his whole body back and forth across the floor like a pendulum in his efforts to break free. Hawke clamped force magic over each of his ankles, the first trapped mid-flail and the second while scrabbling even harder at the capture of the first. Finally, Hawke made him slam his arms down by his side, the only sign that it hadn't been of his own volition was his fingers scratching at the dirt so hard his nails bent back in on themselves.

"You fucking whore-!"

Karras' jaw was forced open, Hawke's magic acting as a gag.

"No, Hawke," Anders said. "I want to hear him."

"Are you sure, Anders?"

"Very sure."

The force disappeared. Karras bit down, hard. He opened his mouth again to snarl something but whatever it was was lost in a scream as Anders sent ropes of electricity dancing along his skin. His breastplate amplified it, sending further white-hot spikes coruscating along the metal until it melted into Karras' skin in wet patches. Where it touched only skin and hair it didn't burn but it made Karras' body wrench and seize so hard it pulled a grunt of effort from Hawke as he struggled to keep him held down. Frothy drool poured from between Karras' clenched teeth. His eyes bulged and rolled until they showed only the whites. Fenris didn't see how a man could survive it but Karras screamed still, a hoarse fizzing sound as it was drawn out between the frothing and the clenching. Anders' face was impassive, even as his eyes reflected the lightning he was sending up and down Karras. This wasn't sustainable. Either Anders would run out of mana or Karras would run out of life.

Or not.

The acrid smell of urine filled the clinic. A damp patch of it spread over Karras' crotch, darkening the simple breeches he'd worn. Anders stopped the spell. Karras sagged, jaw still clenched on that same scream, cloying black smoke rising from where the lightning had cooked his armour.

"I think you can let him go now, Hawke," Anders said.

Karras' mouth dropped open. He let out horrid, rattling breaths and flopped onto his side.

"Fenris," Anders said. "Open up a tear in his bowels."

Fenris kneeled down beside Karras. He needed only an index finger rather than a whole fist for this work. In the Imperium Danarius had rather enjoyed the showmanship of having his enemies' bowels ripped out, so his fingers found the place easily enough. He stroked a finger along the lining with a shudder of distaste, then solidified only the tip to shear a hole in its wall. He stood up and edged away quickly while he could. He knew how messy this could get.

Karras _wailed_.

The stink of urine was overpowered by the stink of blood and shit. Karras' skin went pure white, bloodless as his lower body became saturated. Anders stooped down beside him and began to heal him again. Karras, now delirious with pain, sucked in a few soothed breaths as Anders began to repair the damage.

"There," Anders said. He stood up, stepped back and eased himself onto the edge of a bed though his eyes were still intent on Karras. "I've healed enough that it'll be hours before he dies."

The smells of cooked skin and worse were beginning to turn Fenris' stomach.

"I'll just-" Hawke said. "I need some air."

Hawke stepped outside the clinic. Fenris, however, felt compelled to stay even if he couldn't continue to look at Karras. He told himself it was foolish. He had killed countless men. He had killed _this_ one. Even so, he simply couldn't turn his head back to the spectacle in front of him. He could, however, hear every laboured breath and whimper. Hours later, he heard the death rattle.

"Tell Hawke it's over," Anders said.

Fenris forced himself to look back at him. Anders' eyes were watering as if he hadn't even dared blink just in case that was the fraction of a second in which Karras died. Fenris hastened to the door, avoiding filth and dead Templars as he went.

"Hawke," he said.

"You look a bit green," Hawke said. "The air's not exactly fresh out here but it's better than in there."

"Thank you, Hawke."

Hawke squeezed his shoulder. Fenris almost managed not to flinch at the touch. He wanted to explain the reaction but Hawke had already passed the threshold of the clinic. Fenris leaned against the wall and dragged some of Darktown's putrid, but comparatively fresh, air into his lungs. When he'd judged enough time to have passed he returned inside the clinic to find it had been cleaned. The space where Karras' body had lay was now a blackened crater in the earth baked to stone like a golem. The Templars had been stripped of their armour, lined up and dressed in the mismatched clothes Fenris remembered from Anders' stash.

"Ah, Fenris," Hawke said. "We were just saying if we dump the bodies far enough apart no one will notice. What are a few more bodies in Darktown?"

"The armour?" Fenris asked in one moment and in the next, before anyone could answer, the breath was being rushed out of his chest.

The room span so fast and his markings became so dizzyingly bright that he didn't make sense of what was happening until his back hit the wall. Then it became clear at once, like a reflection in rippling water resolving into a shape once it stilled. It was the heel of Anders' hand that had knocked the wind out of him, pressed into his sternum at the exact point a healer would choose to cause maximum pain. Cracks of Fade light had opened up all over Anders, blank blue eyes carrying all the same heat as the markings burning in Fenris' skin.

Fenris could have thrown him off. In some ways Justice was stronger than Anders but he inhabited the body of a mage still. Fenris could have punched through his chest and wrapped his fingers around Anders' heart. He could have shoved him off and streaked away. He could have done many things. Instead, he simply allowed Anders' hand to press harder into his chest and the other to come up and squeeze the column of his throat bruising hard.

" **Now you pay for your part in this** ," Justice said because for all Anders' protests to the contrary, there was still a clear delineation between the two.

"Anders!" Hawke said. "Put him down!"

" **Justice must be done.** "

"Anders! Listen to yourself. Fenris has just helped you to destroy these bastards. Put him down. Right now!"

" **He held us down. That was what allowed this...** " Justice's facade flickered and he was almost Anders again for a moment while he struggled with the alien concept before Justice returned just as bright. " **We felt the lyrium through our wrists. All involved must be punished.** "

" _What_?" Hawke said, his face somehow worse than Justice's.

"Thralled-" Fenris choked.

The Fade was whispering through his markings, carried through the press of Anders' palm to the thick lyrium branch at his throat. Anders squeezed him harder, fingers contracting around his throat, trapping the breaths struggling in his chest.

"Anders!" Hawke said. "Is this really what you want?"

The Fade light blinked out as quickly as it had come. Anders stumbled away from him. He brought his knuckles up to his mouth, the other hand caressing his wrist where Fenris could still see a faint ring of pink. Fenris sagged, bracing himself on one of the beds with both hands as he forced air back into his lungs in sputtering breaths.

"You said he was tied up," Hawke said.

Fenris bowed his head into his heaving chest, unable to respond to the accusation just yet.

"He was thralled," Anders said. "That's the only reason I could hold Justice back."

"Then why did he lie? Why did you lie, Fenris?"

"Why do you think, Hawke?" Anders again. "This isn't helping. You're not helping. You can't give Justice a reason. I won't be able to hold him back all the time and he believes even for a second that this was Fenris' fault, we'll end up killing him."

"But-"

"You don't know what it's like to have someone else puppeting your body, Hawke."

"Fenris?"

Fenris straightened up. His breathing was still laboured but he felt more in control of it now. "I believed you thought better of me than this, Hawke."

Hawke stared at him for a long while, then coloured and ducked his head. "Sorry. All this is..."

"I know," Anders said. "I think I'd like to be alone for a while now."

"Anders-"

"Don't argue, Hawke."

Hawke dragged his heels over it but he left. Fenris didn't follow immediately.

"I am sorry," Fenris said.

"I know," Anders said. "But please. I need..."

"Understood."

Fenris found Hawke had already left Darktown when he exited the clinic. Instead of returning home, he slumped against one of the walls and sat down. Whatever Anders wanted, he questioned the wisdom of leaving completely so soon after a Templar raid. He would offer what he could, even if it was only protection.

 **The End**


End file.
